London is not the same as the Broncos. RL is London is demonstrably working, far more so than in pretty much any other part of the UK. More people will watch the game tomorrow than will watch Salford at home for the entirety of SL 2014. It is a heart land for our game. We have huge numbers of juniors coming through. The failure of a club like bradford northern is different because it has deep roots in the local community that the Broncos doesn't. So, the question is not should the Broncos stand or fall, but rather what is required to satsify the huge local appetite for RL and to give local players a pathway to keep them in our game.

I have been here a long long time now, and the answer seems as plain as day to me.

Play at least one international, plus get Wigan down to play pre season, plus put on an Exiles fixture, plus stage an attractive SL game (or hold the Magic Week end down here), plus get the NRL champions to play a game here as a warm up for the WCC, and spend a lot of money marketing these games.

I don't know enough about the NRL, but my impression is that Newscorp have written and are continuing to write blank cheques for Melbourne. Anyone that wants to take over from David H on those terms is welcome to do so. If we want to promote Toulouse into SL instead, then I'd be doing cart wheels, as the upside there is enormous for us, and the risks are low.

London is not the same as the Broncos. RL is London is demonstrably working, far more so than in pretty much any other part of the UK. More people will watch the game tomorrow than will watch Salford at home for the entirety of SL 2014. It is a heart land for our game.

For them to launch one, there would need to be someone interested in backing one plus somewhere for them to play.

I think SL is dead for a long while to come.

Broncos might be salvagable as KPC1 side for 2015 and that's about as positive as one can be.

You may be right. It sounds like that is what you want to happen. However the reality is it depends entirely on whether someone is prepared to support the club financially in the future. Local players are now starting to come through in numbers so the development work has been successful . We don't know what is happening yet. Is what your actually saying is that rugby league CAN'T work in London? Or even anywhere outside Yorkshire or Lancashire?
I do not know what the answer is but I do believe that if London were where Huddersfield are now they would be getting higher attendances than Huddersfield The current attendances are not in my view the answer to all the questions as London have achieved bigger crowds in the past.
Please don't forget London have reached both the final and semi-final of the CC in the recent period as well

Currently there is significant interest in big RL events in London and there has been for decades, what is not there is enough interest to even partially support a Pro RL club.

To be more specific, there isn't the interest to support an under-funded and unsuccessful pro RL club. If the club were well-funded and enjoying considerable on-field success, then they may well enjoy far greater crowds.

I'm back after my computer broke down. missed me have you ...,Thought not...

I have been trying not to allow this slow motion car crash to spoli my RL World Cup. However what is going on is bizzare business logic

For the record there are two investors according to Gort who are interested

Talks with Barnet FC chairman Tony Kleanthous, who has expressed an interest in acquiring a stake in the club, recently broke down but he is now thought to be back at the negotiating table with Broncos owner David Hughes.

It is thought Kleanthous is not the only other interested party but is the Broncos' preferred option since it would provide the club with a new home at The Hive

IMO for Tony Kleanthous read Moss and Roberts at Crusaders. Kleanthous is not an RL fan at all and the fact that Hughes favours him is yet another poor decision from the man who as another poster pointed out about John Wilkinson has run the club into the ground

If you are going into adminstration - unlike Bradford, why let go of your only assets (i.e the Players) such as Tommy Lee and Antonio Kaufusi by releasing them from their contracts and not getting a fee. Come to think of it was the "undisclosed fee" allegedly paid by Wigan for Tony Clubb used to pay up the contracts of Michael Robertson and Shane Rodney who were both contracted for 2014 ?

Perhaps Gus Mackay can tell us, now en route to Wrexham with another Broncos fan who has Gus Mackay's e-mail and number I was informed he is uncontactable. Our CEO's wherabouts now being on a par with Lord Lucan and Shergar's.

We are told that the move from Harlequins was down to the rent for the ground no longer fitting the club's financial model, the move to the Stoop being partly trigged by the Club's inability to afford the rent to Brentford FC. Kleanthous the "shrewd businessman" will not come cheap

As for alternative venues to Barnet, there are a few which would work out cheaper but would find favour with Mr Hughes, who is the man responsible for the club's decine into irrelevance. His legacy being :

A club without secure tenure at a home ground

A club with about five contracted players allegedly.

A club with no active Website, Facebook or Twitter account

A club with no staff to either market the club or sell tickets

A club with a fanbase of approx 600 season ticket holders last year and stands to lose at least 33% of those due to the move across London and disgust at the management of the club.

Marytn Sadler got it right in stating on Backchat the problems faced by the game could be sumed up nin two words London Broncos. For those of you suggesting the club gives nothing to the game, I would point out the benefits of a club in the Capital have always been predicated upon a successful RL club in terms of expanding the games gene pool, attracting more media attention and a higher class of sponsor. But that's not what we have.

Organic Growth does not work as Parky has pointed out without a substantial stack of money, though I have to laugh at the hypocracy of posters who come on here and say my small Town / Village is dying because it cannot get into Super League and then say Broncos should drop down into the same KPC championship they are currently in to "rebuild".

The approach of building demand advoced by Exiled Wiganer and Ray French is also the successful approach being adopted by the NFL with its International Series games at Wembley increasing from 1 to 2 and then 3 creating deamnd for the sport to the point at which within 5-10 years people will say "wy dont we have our own team". This of course is too radical an approach for a deeply traditionalist sport. So in the absence of that I would suggest that anyone with spare cash puts it into the London Skolars with a view to building a club so that when the more enlightened seize power within the game probably a couple of years of chaos and despair caused by the new RFL flatcap friendly masterplan. there is a club that would stand a better chance of making it in the big league than flogging a dead Bronco.

As for SKY well when Super League began Rugby League was high on its lists of properties, it is not now, SKY has more sporting "crown jewels" to promote in the summer months now so a geographically limited filler sport can indeed by shunted across the schedule to a "dead" evening such as Thursday nights as I predicted a few months ago. Such a sport will of course be one of those taking a hit in TV rights fees as SKY competes with BT Sport for the market will only take subscription to rise to a certain level. So SKY has no interest in the Broncos and is currently showing less interest in the game full stop.

I am afraid the decline of the Broncos mirrors the decline in the game as a whole in the Northern Hemisphere for once the tab of ecstacy that is the World Cup has worn off there will be a reckoning.

I saw the demise coming when they changed back to London Broncos from Harlequins. At the time they became Harlequins I saw this as the one move that was stopping them from going under back them, the bitterness towards the Harlequins brand just didn't stop though and I can see why that deal died even though it was keeping the Broncos in a secure home, albeit in not a perfect location.

When the decision was reached to end their tenancy at The Stoop I just couldn't see a way out for them unless they had a football club sized takeover where a mega-rich owner would buy/build/lease them a properly professional London stadium with them as primary tenants. Unfortunately, London RL just won't see that sort of money anytime soon.

I genuinely have no idea when or if we'll see a fully-professional, top-tier club in London again. Even the Skolars will hit the stadium problem if they ever managed to become the focus of all London RL grassroots development and wanted to move to challenging for the top league. There's a massive jump from being a really well run CC1 club to a SL club and the infrastructure costs of inside the M25 are so prohibitive that it's almost a hard and impenetrable barrier.

Arguing with the forum trolls is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird will **** on the board and strut around like it won anyway

I saw the demise coming when they changed back to London Broncos from Harlequins. At the time they became Harlequins I saw this as the one move that was stopping them from going under back them, the bitterness towards the Harlequins brand just didn't stop though and I can see why that deal died even though it was keeping the Broncos in a secure home, albeit in not a perfect location.

When the decision was reached to end their tenancy at The Stoop I just couldn't see a way out for them unless they had a football club sized takeover where a mega-rich owner would buy/build/lease them a properly professional London stadium with them as primary tenants. Unfortunately, London RL just won't see that sort of money anytime soon.

I genuinely have no idea when or if we'll see a fully-professional, top-tier club in London again. Even the Skolars will hit the stadium problem if they ever managed to become the focus of all London RL grassroots development and wanted to move to challenging for the top league. There's a massive jump from being a really well run CC1 club to a SL club and the infrastructure costs of inside the M25 are so prohibitive that it's almost a hard and impenetrable barrier.

The answer to that is easy; not for at least twenty years.

It's decision time for the RFL and the game as a whole (should have been three years ago but no-one was brave enough to face up to it). Do they want a SL team in London or not?

"Just as we had been Cathars, we were treizistes, men apart."
Jean Roque, Calendrier-revue du Racing-Club Albigeois, 1958-1959

It's decision time for the RFL and the game as a whole (should have been three years ago but no-one was brave enough to face up to it). Do they want a SL team in London or not?

Of course they do they just do not want to pay for it. The RFL probably don't have the money to pay for it and would come under tremendous pressure not to pay for it when so many other member clubs are struggling. Will SL pay for it? Well there isn't enough money in the SKY contract unless they drop to ten clubs and are prepared to give London double or more than the other nine. No chance there.

The solution is to find a cheaper venue forgetting licensing requirements at the bottom of the M1, unload debts via administration, rely on the RFL to perhaps fund the academy and hope that the "cost" or running an SL club in London is minimised to the point someone will have a go. Which looks like plan "A".

Plan "B" is the wishful thinking plan based around the words "organically grow" and "re-build".

Of course they do they just do not want to pay for it. The RFL probably don't have the money to pay for it and would come under tremendous pressure not to pay for it when so many other member clubs are struggling. Will SL pay for it? Well there isn't enough money in the SKY contract unless they drop to ten clubs and are prepared to give London double or more than the other nine. No chance there.

The solution is to find a cheaper venue forgetting licensing requirements at the bottom of the M1, unload debts via administration, rely on the RFL to perhaps fund the academy and hope that the "cost" or running an SL club in London is minimised to the point someone will have a go. Which looks like plan "A".

Plan "B" is the wishful thinking plan based around the words "organically grow" and "re-build".

You seem to have left out "Central funding for London will happen because Hudgell said so" or "A second SL club in London is inevitable because Sky / Lewis want it".

The RFL will be desparate for London (or A.N.Other club) to make up the 14th team.Nothing looks worse than an odd number of teams -with blank fixture dates-and season ticket holders from other clubs demanding the extra fixture that they have paid for.

The RFL will be desparate for London (or A.N.Other club) to make up the 14th team.Nothing looks worse than an odd number of teams -with blank fixture dates-and season ticket holders from other clubs demanding the extra fixture that they have paid for.

London is not the same as the Broncos. RL is London is demonstrably working, far more so than in pretty much any other part of the UK. More people will watch the game tomorrow than will watch Salford at home for the entirety of SL 2014. It is a heart land for our game. We have huge numbers of juniors coming through. The failure of a club like bradford northern is different because it has deep roots in the local community that the Broncos doesn't. So, the question is not should the Broncos stand or fall, but rather what is required to satsify the huge local appetite for RL and to give local players a pathway to keep them in our game.

I have been here a long long time now, and the answer seems as plain as day to me.

Play at least one international, plus get Wigan down to play pre season, plus put on an Exiles fixture, plus stage an attractive SL game (or hold the Magic Week end down here), plus get the NRL champions to play a game here as a warm up for the WCC, and spend a lot of money marketing these games.

I don't know enough about the NRL, but my impression is that Newscorp have written and are continuing to write blank cheques for Melbourne. Anyone that wants to take over from David H on those terms is welcome to do so. If we want to promote Toulouse into SL instead, then I'd be doing cart wheels, as the upside there is enormous for us, and the risks are low.

Do you think that the Magic weekend could work in London?

And given the other sporting events at Wembley, and the need to keep it apart from the Challenge Cup final, when would you have it on?

The RFL will be desparate for London (or A.N.Other club) to make up the 14th team.Nothing looks worse than an odd number of teams -with blank fixture dates-and season ticket holders from other clubs demanding the extra fixture that they have paid for.

This of course is where I felt the inclusion of the Broncos in the fixture list was a cruel joke perpitrated on rugby league. For Indeed as you say some SL clubs have been selling Season Tickets on the basis of 13 Home Games. Now if the RFL sticks to its statement of a 13 club league if the Broncos fold. You can be a refund will be demanded. Northerners are like that for was it not a Wigan season ticket holder that stopped the club from giving free admission for ladies to one of their fixtures a few years ago on the grounds that he had paid and they would not and this was sex discrimination...

Back on topic, since the RFL did not release the magic fixtures along with the season fixtures and claimed to have been kept fully informed by the London Broncos then would have known about what Ian Ramsdale calls the "planned" administration (though those without a wage were unlike Rammo allegedly not informed of this masterplan). Is this not another bone of contention between the other 13 clubs and the RFL ?

On London's debts, I have heard face to face from our benefactor that London Broncos are debt free in that he absorbs the debt. So who is owed what ?

I understand Harlequins would have been paid up front and MKK stopped supplying club merchandise late last season. So if there is a debt why release your only assets, the playing staff from their contracts ?

Perhaps this answers the question that I and spectators who also have a background in other sports, including one sporting club historian, always felt while watching Bronquins geting hammered in the wide open space of the Stoop "How on earth do they pay the bills?".

If the club goes into liquidation what is left to liquidate, the training equipment apparently in a lock up somewhere with kit man Steve McGee holding the keys ?

After a World Cup Tournament which by Rugby League's standards has raised the spirits if perhaps not raised as much money or media coverage in comparison with other less geographically challenged sports. It is perhaps in Northern Hemisphere rugby leagues own DNA that the climax to the tournament - which England may yet win - ends up with the demise of the last remaining vestige of the Super League dream casting a hefty black raincloud over what should be one of the games moments in the sun.

Come 2016, the obvious place to have Magic Weekend is the Olympic Stadium. Given the need to justify the rent, I think that West Ham would welcome it with open arms so long as it happens outside the football season, maybe the second May Bank Holiday. Wembley stays "special" as the home of the Challenge Cup, Magic Weekend gets into a stadium which is arguably easier to get to from across London and across the country.

The Broncos don't have a stadium, thus get none of the matchday earnings and are perennially unstable. The Quins RL thing was virtually a licensing deal, it still cost the club money. They need to be in a stadium they either control or have an equal stake it, be it 50:50 with another club in another sport or a 1/3 share involving the local council. I suggested two years ago that the place to build a new stadium for the Broncos was Old Oak Common. It's on the eastern edge of Park Royal and there's a lot of industrial brownfield land that Hammersmith & Fulham want to be redeveloped and it will attract grants. Then that summer, the council launched a plan called Park Royal City to turn the area into the Canary Wharf of West London. Even then, there was the possibility of getting in on the ground floor as this year QPR suggested they were conducting a feasibility study into moving there. Brentford are building a new stadium and they need a partner, their business plan demands a rugby club and the stadium is built with that in mind.. Wasps wanted to move back into London, they needed a partner. London Welsh originally wanted to stay in West London and they were looking to be a tenant. AFC Wimbledon still want to build a new stadium and they're looking for a partner. It's not like there's nothing out there for the Broncos, it's just a case that there's no money there to be spent to get into one of these projects.

Over on the Guardian's website a while back, there was an interview with Gus Mackay suggesting they were looking for a £500,000 investment. They need £100m.and the vision to spend it across 10-15 years. Say £10-20m to buy into a stadium project, be it Wimbledon or Brentford most likely. £30m on covering the salaries, another £30m on youth development and the rest marketing the ###### out of the team. That's what needs to be done to bridge the hundred years where nothing was spent. Who'd drop £100m on RL in London? No idea but that's the crazy fool we need.